


Take Care

by Damalia (Achrya)



Series: Modern ABO, PolyPack [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Implied Mpreg, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mild Language, Multi, Polyamorous Pack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-05 19:40:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6719080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Achrya/pseuds/Damalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason never knows when to ask for help or admit that he's tired. Ari and Xander are less than impressed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take Care

**Author's Note:**

> Just experimenting with the characters in my poly pack at the moment. Trying to flesh out their personalities a bit before I try out a real story with them.

There were downsides and upsides to working with people you were sleeping with. Lack of time apart and sniping at each other when things got stressful ranked very high on the cons list. Having people who had no choice but to stay and lock up with you because you were their ride home was a plus that, sometimes, ended up being a con. 

“Hey, Jason?” Ari called, pausing in his task of mopping the floor. He was still in his uniform, a pale blue maid style dress, white apron, and white knee high socks, but his face was free of makeup and his long red ringlets were pinned to his head in a messy bun.

Jason hummed an acknowledgement as he finished filling out the bank bag for the day’s earnings. They were just about done: registers were balanced, that safe was counted, tables wiped down, and Xander had already finished what had been left of the dishes. He just had to double check the pastries for the next day and then they could leave. 

He was beyond ready for it. If he hadn’t had to drive his mates home he would have seriously considered just going to sleep in the employee lounge and taking a shower at the gym down the block the next day. Still it was only another thirty or so minutes, tops, and then he’d be home, in bed, and hopefully dead to the world. 

“Can we stop at the store on the way home? ‘Shiro and I are making brownies tonight but we’re out of butter. And ice cream. And whipped cream.” Ari listed the items off on his fingers. “And pecans. Maybe corn syrup for pecan pie bars.”

Jason schooled his face into something less exhausted and nodded. “No problem.” 

Xander, who was sitting cross legged on the counter in spite of Jason’s many attempts to get him to use a chair, glanced up from his textbook. He’d already changed, eager as always to get out of his wig and uniform, into red and white trackpants and a t-shirt with ‘West Side University’ scrawled on the front. “Since when do you need whipped cream to make brownies?” 

Ari clucked his tongue while shaking his head. “Since my momma’s brownies are an ‘experience’, Xan, and must be enjoyed with all the proper accompaniments.” 

He picked up the mop as he spoke, stripping off the dirty pad from the bottom, and headed past them into the back. Xander was silent until the other omega had gone through the door then he turned to Jason, expression deadly serious.  

“He says that about everything he bakes. He smacked a fork out of my hand when he saw me trying to eat that peach cobbler he made without his ‘spiced vanilla whipped cream’.” 

Jason shrugged, eyes on the line of receipt paper being printed out for the end of day procedure. “If you know he says that about everything you should have seen it coming.” 

Ari took his baking very seriously. Maybe a little too seriously but then Toshiro was known to throw utensils at people if they invaded the kitchen while he was cooking so, in the grand scheme of things, Jason figured it wasn’t so bad. Besides, baking was something Ari found to be comforting and it made him happy, like Shiro and cooking or Xander and his running, and seeing his mates happy was what was most important to Jason. He could defend a little insanity in those cases. 

But it looked like Xander had conveniently forgotten all the times Jason had gotten up at the crack of dawn to accompany him while he trained for his latest track meet or marathon. 

“You would say that.” Xander muttered. “Ari’s your favorite.”

Jason glanced up, considering the other man carefully. Their relationship was...not the most conventional. Usually packs had one alpha and then betas and omegas fighting for that alpha’s attention, subtly encouraged to resent each other. Being with anyone but the alpha, except in the most extreme of circumstances, was considered not just a bad thing but a sign of a poorly ‘managed’ pack and a weak alpha. But they didn’t work like that and it was, at times, harder than if they did. 

The freedom to build relationships within the pack as they saw fit, to be intimate with whoever they choose (and likewise not intimate), came with problems all it’s own. That some relationships- him and Ari, him and Ren, Toshiro and Aivaan- had existed before they’d been a pack was something that sometimes always managed to be brought up at the absolute worst of times. 

Jason liked to think he loved all his mates equally. He didn’t like them all equally or even as much as he had the day before on individual levels (He wasn’t particularly pleased with Ren and his takeover of the garage to halfway paint furniture only to get distracted and leave the area unusable all weekend at the moment.) He also liked to think he treated them all equally, or at least tried to. 

It was easy to pay more attention to someone who was having a harder time or to get caught up in the warm familiarity nearly two decades of friendship had built between him and Ren or to lose himself in Ari, who he’d loved when his concept of love had been hazy at best, shamefully shaped by his alpha best friend and focused on a pregnant omega he’d known he didn’t have any business wanting. 

It was even easier to be angry or jealous or sit up at night wondering what the fuck he was doing because how could they all even begin to fit together like this? They were insane. There was reasons packs didn’t work like this, that no one had two alphas, that omegas couldn’t get along when they shared a mate let alone be together. 

The doubts lingered and gnawed at him and, he knew, the others. He didn’t talk about his own problems much, alphas were supposed to comfort not need to be comforted, but he listened and heard thoughts that echoed his own. He tried to sooth them as best as he could, though it went without saying that Ren was better at it (Ren was ‘terrible’ as far as expected behavior went, a little too emotional and ‘weak’, but Jason had slowly come to realize that there wasn’t much merit in what was expected.) 

Xander’s brows were furrowed and his lips were pursed as if he was annoyed but there was a touch of humor in his eyes that told Jason he was poking fun. Jason snorted then bumped the other playfully with his shoulder. 

“You didn’t seem to think Ari was my favorite in the shower this morning.” 

“Well, no.” Xander pushed his glasses up his nose, grinning. “I’m everyone’s favorite in the shower.” 

He let his mind drift to thoughts of Xander, back against the wall, pink lips parted in a ‘O’, pale skin flushed pink and slick with water while his hair, pastel purple at the roots and gradually lightening to a pale bond, clung to his face and tipped back neck and one hand scrambled over the tile while the other tightened on Jason’s shoulder.

“Maybe.” 

The omega’s smirk as he slipped off the counter sent a thrill up Jason’s spine. The omega was nearly a foot smaller than him but Xander didn’t possess much of the delicacy omegas were supposed to have. When he put his hand in the middle of Jason’s chest and pushed there was real strength behind it. He was pushed against the counter, Xan between his legs, with arms bracketing him in on either side in short order. His hand touched the back of Xander's head and trailed over the bumps and grooves of the single thick braid keeping his hair in place.

Xander pushed up onto his toes and Jason bent forward to meet him. 

“Eww. Not on the counter.” Ari’s voice made him jerk back just short of capturing Xander’s lips. “At least go bang in the lounge where it isn’t a food safety hazard.” 

Jason eyed his other mate from the corner of his eye while tugging on the end of Xander's braid. Ari was watching them, eyebrow cocked in disapproval, and arms crossed over his chest. He’d taken the time to change while he was in the back and Jason couldn’t help but notice the differences between the two. 

Xander was the shorter of the two but his body was harder, all lean muscle and power, and he rejected the image of the long haired, perfectly put together, skirt and heel wearing omega. Or, perhaps, didn’t reject it but simply had never fallen into it and never felt like he should try to. He was sharp and hard and determined. 

Ari, on the other hand, was more pliant in temperament, easy going and eager to please, and softer in body. His pale pink skirt clung to wide hips before flaring out around his knees and the white and pink floral crop top he’d opted for showed a rounded stomach and a spattering of freckles over milk pale skin. When Ari stretched, yawning widely, his shirt rode up a little and the temptation to walk over and press his hand against the exposed skin was strong. 

“Pervert.” 

Jason blinked, noting the way Ari’s lips quirked upwards, then glanced down at Xan who was looking at him like he could see straight through him. “I prefer ‘appreciator of fine goods’.” 

He was graced with a snort before Xander stepped back to his books to gather them up. Jason finished everything else out, stepped into the back to make sure everything was good there, and dropped the bank deposit in the safe for the morning. His mates were waiting at the back door door for him when he was done, each holding a bag of trash, talking softly. 

They stopped when he got close, all smiles and wide sweet eyes. Jason eyed them suspiciously but said nothing as he pushed open the door for them to file out. 

“Are you opening tomorrow?” Ari asked, voice full of sugary innocence, once the trash was dumped and they were heading for the parking lot. Jason sent him a sidelong glance before nodding slowly. 

“Colette's daughter is still in the hospital so, yeah.” Xander shot Ari a look that was very much I told you so and warning bells went off in Jason’s head. “Why?”

"You should ask Toshiro to open instead." The redhead said, ignoring his question. "He's already in the system and he always does a great job in the kitchen. He wouldn't mind filling in for Colette."

“Besides, didn’t you already work all day today?” Xander asked even though Jason knew that the blond was well aware that he had. “You must be tired right? So maybe we should go home instead of the store.”

At this he hesitated. He loved the cafe, loved that Ren’s sire basically gave him free reign over the place as long as they stayed in the black and appreciated that the slightly unethical matter of sleeping with two of his employees was looked past, but the long days were very long. He’d opened that morning because the baker was out, stayed in the kitchen until he’d come onto his shift as manager, and he’d closed out. 

He was half-dead on his feet and more than ready to call it a night.

“I think I can manage a stop at the grocery store. It’s not even out of the way.” 

But he was also a sucker. He didn’t like to deny his mates anything, least of all something as easy as stopping at the store on the way home, so he rarely did. Ren said he overcompensated because his own sire had been such an asshole to all of his mates and children, something Jason never wanted to duplicate. There was a healthy dose of wanting to feel like he provided for them and was needed too, but he didn’t like to talk about that. 

Xan and Ari exchanged a look he couldn’t quite read and then Xander shook his head. “Nope. I know alpha pride doesn’t let you admit that-”

“Are you saying I have a pride problem because I’m an alpha?” Jason frowned. The care was in sight, just a few rows back in the lot, and he fished his keys out of his pocket. 

“...” Xander’s face was carefully blank. “Admit that sometimes you’re tired or need a break and won’t let you tell us to fuck off. And that you’d die curled up in a hole somewhere with the cafe ledger in one hand, Vaan’s chemistry book in the other, and a ticket to my next meet in your pocket before you asked anyone to help you with anything.”

That was...oddly specific. And not necessarily untrue. 

Ari sighed then smiled softly. “What Xander means is you’re tired and we’re going home so we can take care of you.” Fingers wrapped around his own and squeezed.

“Something like that, yeah.” Xander agreed. 

Jason smiled wanly. “I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to be taking care of you two.” And everyone else. Probably Ren too, hopelessly sweet and good natured as the other alpha was. 

“Sounds like dumb alpha shit.” 

Ari nodded solemnly. “Don’t be a dumb alpha, honey. It’s unbecoming.” 

A part of being a decent alpha that Jason had learned along the way was that when it came to his mates sometimes it was better to be less the alpha he thought he should be and more what they wanted him to be. 

“Fine. But one of you has to wash my back in the shower.” 

Ari’s smile was pure mischief. “We’ll both wash your back. And each others if you want to watch.” 

Jason bit back a groan. “That doesn’t sound restful.”

“It is if all you do is watch.” Xander countered. 

Jason didn’t argue and just shook his head as he crossed to the driver’s side of the car. In the grand scheme of things this was probably an upside to working with them, even if their definition of 'rest' needed a little work. 


End file.
